Organic Nomenclature Gary Lampman, Western Washington University, Trinity Soflware. Campton, NH 03223
Hardware: Components: Level and Subject: Cost:
IBM PC, PS12, Tandy or other IBM Compatible Computer Seven disks and an Instructors Guide College-Organic Chemistry $150
Summary Ratlngs: Category Ease 01 Use: Subject Matter Conlenl: Pedagogic Value: Studenl Readion:
Excellent Excellent Excellent Untested
This software and documentation is an interactive tutorial/drill for naming organic compounds. The software leads the student through naming alkanes, cycloalkanes, alkenes, alkynes, halides, ethers, alcohols, arenes, carhonyl compounds, acids, m i n e s and phenols. The documentation is 16 pages long with the last eight pages devoted to a list of the answers to the exercises. Once the software iscopied to mother diskor installed on your hard disk, using the manual is helpful hut not necessary. If you are familiar with the operation of your PC, you may not need to read anything more than the installation chapter to operate these programs. For each functional group type there are both drill and practice sections. In the tutorial sections the IUPAC rules are fully reviewed in 3 to 17 mini-tutorials covering the rules and many examples of naming a particular functional group. A nice feature of this is that at the end of each mini-tutorial, the student is asked to apply what he just learned to the naming of some compound.
-Reviewed
Each drill section contains from 6 to 17 exercises specifically covering the material inrt learned in the tutorial. These exercises ,~ are of graded dift~cuity,with the first ones easily cvmplrtrd and the latter ones much more challenging. On-line help screens provide the student with tables of common stem and substituent names. The program makes good use of color, but it is not necessary to have a color monitor in order to use the program. Although a monochrome monitor may cause some diffieulties. Each of the 16 tutorials and sccompanying drills requires approximately 20-30 miu to complete. At the end, a summary of the student performance in the drill is given. This summary includes how many correct answers, and haw many second tries were required, etc. In a typical drill exercise the program displays s structural formula and the student must enter the correct IUPAC name. After entering the name, the student presses the ENTER key to have the answer evaluated. If the answer is correct, the program moves to the next exercise. If the answer is not correct the program evaluates the student inout and disolavs a list of everything that is correct about the student input. Then it identifies the specific errors in the name. Errors identified are an incorrectly named or numbered substituent, incorrect stem name and incorrect iunctional gnrup. It does not speritically identify ernm of ounctuation, soellina. ordermp. uf suhstituents, hyphensoithe inclusion ofkxtra spaces. Once the program bas completed the evaluation of an incorrect response, the student is presented with three choices: Help, Options, and Edit. Help provides more information about the specific error. Options allows the student access to on-line help screens, review of the tutorial or the current exercise or to return to the main menu. Edit allows the student to make the necessary correctic,ns to the nameand then rvnluatr it again. Lampman has done an excellent job in presenting this topic. In the midst of teaching heavier topics in organic chemistry, the teaching of nomenclature is only lightly cov~
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ered by most instructors. We often assume that the student can quickly learn nomenclature while keeping up with the lectures. The computer here, makes learning the naming of organic compounds less tedious for the student. I have only one small quibble with the software. At times I am a sloppy typist. I have an occasional tendency to double letters or invert the order of a oair of letters. For example, I might spell prupyl as "PRROPYI."oras"PROPI.Yn.I thinkthar these ore quite common errors. However, when entering the name containing one of these errors, I received the same response as if I had named the propyl group as an ethyl group. A warning message would he OK, but recognition of doubled letters or of inverted pairs would solve some frustration. Unfortunately, I received this software well after introducing organic nomenclature in the fallquarter, so I did not test this in the classroom. However, I intend to use this program next fall. I helieve that this program will aid my students in developing their skills of organic nomenclature. The instructional pacing and the amount of material covered in the mini-tutorial sections are just about right. Richard F. Daley Walla Walla College College Place. WA 99324 Handbook ol Organlc Coatings: A Comprehenslve Gulde for t h e C o a t l q s Industry Raymond B. Seymour, and Herman F. Mark. Elsevier: New York, 1990. ix 350 pp. 15 X 22.7 cm. $85.00
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One of the most important branches of technology, polymer processing accounts for about $100 billion of value added annually to American manufacturing. Coatings science is a major consumer of synthetic polymers, yet few books are available on the topic. This volume, authored by two of polymer science's most distinguished, prolific, and venerable pioneers (Seymour will be 78 in
Reviewer
Computer Learning Package Gary Lamprnan, Organic Nomenclature
Richard F. Daly
A220
George B. Kauffman
A220
George B. Kauffman
A221
Malcolm M. Renfrew
A221 A221
Books Raymond B. Seymour and Herman F. Mark, Handbook of Organic Coatings: A Comprehenslve Guide for the Coatings lndustry Duward F. Shriver, P. W. Atkins, a n d Cooper H Langford, Inorganic Chemistry M. A. Brown, Liquid ChromatographyIMass Spectrometry New Volumes in Continuing Series Monographs Titles of Interest
A220
Journal of Chemical Education
A221 A222
